#this is based off of the heaps of lore I have created in my head based off of the crumbs we know about their dynamic

[dirtytransmasc]

sometimes I go a little crazy and imagine the complex grief Neteyam would have gone through had Spider died in place of him.

the grief that comes with losing your best friend and big brother—

because that's what he was. long ago, when you were little kids, and he still was now, even though you pushed him away, the bond never died, you just abandoned it, and it would be hard, but if you walked up to him he would have taken you back in a heartbeat, arms wide and open and warm, burying his own hurt to keep you close. and you know that. you know he would have, but you never did. you never went back, because it would sting, it would press on old wounds, and it would have upset your parents and your clan and... and you weren't brave enough for that.

—but you couldn't call him that.

he was different than you. a human. a demon. an outcast. quietly removed from you and your home and the forest and your family and your siblings and your clan and even the other humans.

because he was different.

he was unloved by your people. and now a foreign stranger in your new home. they hold no love or memory or any sympathy for him that went past basic compassion and sadness for a child, if even that. he was nothing to them. they did not know he was good. that he was kind. that he was strong. that he would have done anything for his siblings, even you, with all your faults. they did not know.

and you're the perfect eldest child in their eyes, not a boy who would have curled up in the protection of that human boy's arms in an instant if you weren't afraid of being judged. they don't know the conflict that lives in your heart and mind. they don't understand you the way he did, even in his silent watch over you, for all those years you wouldn't call him brother, but he still loved you like one. they don't understand anything about you and what you keep under your facade of a young warrior, eldest son of the Sully's, mature and wise for your age. they don't know that you needed him, you just didn't know how to get him back.

and now no one around you— not even your siblings who will long hold a degree of animosity towards you, no matter how small or subconscious, for all the years they watched you ditch them in favor of duties and push Spider away instead of being their brother, making them a quartet and not a quintet, forcing that awkward tension on them that they'll always have to remember —understands your loss.

not your parents or your new clan, not even your old one will. not your friends or your siblings. not even you.

none of them will understand that he mattered to you. that under the illusion of not needing him or wanting him or considering him family like your siblings did. of seeing him as your mother did, a demon who belonged with his own kind. or passively letting him float in and out of your life because you had bigger, better, more important duties to fulfill, and settling on in or out was too hard. or that when you saw him play and goof off and mess around with your siblings, you wanted to join. or that this entire time in this new home, with things ever so slightly getting better with Lo'ak, you wished he was there too, so maybe things would finally be good.

the friend, the brother, the protector, the shield, the warm smile and golden hair and barking laugh and ever beckoning hand, begging you to join him on an adventure you once knew, is dead. he is dead and gone, and with him died every chance you might have had to fix it. and you will live with your guilt for life, and the fear that comes when you don't have your big brother to look out for you anymore.

and no one understands his grief. he is alone in it. he will feel like a stranger, overstepping a boundary he placed. and he is scared because his big brother is gone. everything he has to face, he has to face scared and alone.

he will be shut out of his siblings grief, just out of how their relationship with one another and Spider was, because their bond is too strained, and he missed out on so much time with them and with Spider and them as a whole. he doesn't fit with their grief.

his parents will want to support him and love him, but Spider mattered very little to them. they were the reason Neteyam pulled away to begin with. Spider wasn't his brother in their minds. they could never support him the way he needed.

the Metkayina, no matter their love or care or sympathy for Neteyam, can't help either.

he is alone. living with his grief. with his regrets. with his pain. it's overwhelming and all consuming. and he will continue to try and act like everything is fine, because he doesn't know what else to do.

they make me fucking insane

[maskedinfinate]

Please infodump about Tibatee,, pls, :0

OF COURSE !!!!! Alright so as mentioned, tibatee is based off of the tinba/tbt virus and is part of the virus gang. Tibatees deal is that whatever he touches becomes corrupted. The corruption can be mild, barely noticeable or at worst life threatening. Even food can be corrupted, for example a thin liquid becoming chunky if he touches it. For these reasons Tibatee was sent to the Cyber Hospital which in present day doesnt exist anymore. People tried treating him, injecting him with what they believed were antidotes, but because of tibatees corruption the antidotes made everything worse. He once accidentally created the virovirokuns, literally, it was on accident but hes the reason they exist. There was also once a tasque manager before the tasque manager we see in deltarune chapter 2, the reason she was replaced was because tibatee accidentally caused her to go into an eternal bluescreen/coma by holding onto her hand for too long. Since she was unresponsive and was basically in a coma, Queen just got a new tasque manager. After a while the whole hospital itself became uninhabitable by people who either werent viruses or didnt have some form of corruption in their body, and tibatee was left all alone in that hospital, still hooked up to an IV pole. After a long time, Queen decided to wreck the entire building since it had no use anymore. Tibatee was already out of the hospital by that time luckily. Tibatee was found by Euran (thats my friends oc ! they're based off of the You Are An Idiot virus!!) and together they make the virus gang !! (there was once another member of the virus gang but i dunno if the person who had the oc even wants to really be part of that anymore which is valid and ok !!) Tibatee lives on the street, and since he among many other viruses are basically rejected by society, it's the only place he calls home. Of course he and euran have to occasionally rob some place or dig through garbage bins to survive daily, but it could be worse. Much worse. Tibatee has horse-like features such as horse ears, and hooves, due to the tinba virus being a trojan horse. Accompanied with tibatees body occasionally switching forms and whatnot due to his corruptive nature. His appearence doesnt change daily, it can happen randomly, he can change back into what he looked like at some point before, or it can be caused through a heaping amount of stress. Tibatee's head can also change shape mainly due to what hes feeling, but only when those emotions are extremely strong. His face can clog up with butterflies, error screens can pop up all around his head, his head can become pink slimy mush, etc. It isn't very pleasant for him when that happens. He still wears his hospital gown because its the only clothes he has, and he believes that whatever is in that IV tube infinitely flowing into his arm is meant to help him, so he never unhooks it or anything. It also reminds him of the small good times he had in that hospital. His corruption does effect those who are already a bit corrupted or those who are viruses greatly, it can effect them, but its not noticeable. Spamton, for example, is already corrupted in some way, if Tibatee were to touch him nothing would really happen. That being said, he must've encountered spamton at least once or twice due to them both living in dumpsters and being rejects of society as a whole. SO YEAH thats my oc lore !! sorry it got so long i had a LOT of stuff to talk about fhdfhgfdhfg I HOPE YOU ENJOYED READING ALL OF IT THO !!!! im really happy someone wanted to hear!!

[origami-goblin]

Starfinder Theme Focus - Spacefarers and Xenoseekers

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First of all, let me apologize. It's been MONTHS since I teased the final article on Starfinder themes and leaving this series in a perilously unfinished limbo. I wish that I had a decent excuse to explain it, but unfortunately I don't have that either. So please, accept my apology, and let's get to the conclusion of this series!

We've covered a lot of bases - Ace Pilots, Bounty Hunters, Icons, Mercenaries, Outlaws, Priests, and Scholars, which means that today we will be talking about Spacefarers, Xenoseekers, and briefly touching on the Themeless concept. That's still a ton of ground to cover, and I'm a bit intimidated even thinking about it. Concluding this intense detail into Starfinder's themes will be bittersweet - not only because it'll be over, but also because there's no way to fully encapsulate the entire, endless spectrum of characters you can create within Paizo's Starfinder universe. That's what's really great about the Themeless option; if none of the other themes do your character justice in describing their schtick, then you can always go Themeless and solve that particular problem.

Whenever I create a character, I will usually start by trying to find an interesting or obscure feat, characteristic, theme, etc and build the character around that. Some people are really creative and come up with amazing backstories first and build the character to fit their artistic vision. Although that'll happen on occasion, I'll generally determine a character's backstory after I've fleshed out their vitals and statblock. The important thing for me is that my characters stand out. Not from a min-max perspective (if that's what you enjoy then keep doing it!), but from a standpoint of going outside the norm and playing a character with abilities that people may have never experienced before.

Stone Warder Sorcerer? Breadth of Experience feat? Archivist Bard? All of these types of choices go leaps and bounds to hint and what the character is all about. A Stone Warder Sorcerer would be something like an Earth Bender from Avatar, gaining their powers from the rocky world around them. Characters with a Breadth of Experience are ancient, meaning that they've seen and heard nearly all there is to know. Bards with the Archivist archetype aren't going to be dishing out much damage, but they are constantly scribbling down their experiences and every bit of lore they can get their hands on. And just like that, a single piece of your character's statblock can literally define them.

That's partly been the point of these posts about the Themes in Starfinder. Sure, you can come up with an absolutely AWESOME character concept and attach a theme that fits that character. No problem. But if you're having trouble coming up with a character, the options listed in these posts are meant to assist you in launching off into the incredible Imagisphere to create a truly unique character.

Alright, I've babbled so much that I've turned into a brook. (Sorry if I've used that particular moniker already...it's been a long time since my last Starfinder post). Time to finish off the series!

Spacefarer Character Concepts

"Your longing to journey among the stars can't be sated. You yearn for the adventure of stepping onto a distant world and exploring its secrets. You tend to greet every new opportunity with bravery and fortitude, confident that your multitude of skills will pull you through. Perhaps you simply find joy in the act of traveling with your companions, or perhaps you are just out to line your pockets with all sorts of alien loot!"

Clueless Tourist - Let's face it. You saw a map of the Pact Worlds and immediately searched the best places to visit on each planet. Theme parks, monuments, parks - you want to visit them all and document your travels on a blog that you're still coming up with a creative name for. Experiences are the best currency to be paid in, and your goal is to become filthy rich on them. Now, you might not understand all of the different cultures or customs in the places that you're visiting, but in your eyes everybody else should be happy that you're bolstering the economy in all of your destinations. Excuse me - could you please take my photo?

Deductive Meteorologist - Perhaps in the same vein as the Environmental Engineer concept from the Scholar post, this character would be all about the weather and is drawn to the varied climates and conditions present in the Pact World planets. Have you ever seen the sunrise through noxious fuchsia clouds or felt thick, oily rain land on your head? All of these phenomenon can be explained through science. Maybe you'll publish a scholarly journal on your findings, or maybe your more of a storm-chaser bent on surviving the most wild and dangerous conditions. No matter how you spin it, you're fascinated by the weather, whether your companions like it or not.  

Hospitable Flight Attendant - Time to make everybody else's travel experiences as enjoyable as possible. You're an expert at socializing and keeping everybody's minds off the baggage fees and severe lack of legroom. In your eyes, there's no part of a space commute that can't be made better by a tall glass of sherry or a delicious sack of Zeni's Zesty Znacks. While traveling, you are sure to keep all the amenities nearby to heighten the enjoyment of those around you. You might have gotten into the gig because you wanted to see the universe, and maybe that itch is just beginning to surface once more.

Curious Explorer - Hardly anything fancy about this one. You love exploring. The mystery, intrigue, and discovery thrill you to pieces. Every time you come across a corner, you just HAVE to see what's on the other side of it. This is known to get you into heaps of trouble and situations where you end up on the wrong end of a 'No Trespassing' sign. But, through your foolhardy actions, you've been able to experience things that very few other people have, and your stories are the things of legend. There are countless star sectors to visit and only so much time...what are you waiting for?!

Budding Photographer - Your goal? The perfect shot. You might be a movie producer scouting locations for your next sector-buster. Or maybe you're an artistic photographer determined to capture the essence of the human (and alien) experience. You never miss a moment and you are incredibly easy to track based on the trail of snapshots that you leave behind. Whether your honing your craft or a complete amateur when it comes to lighting, focus, and apertures, space grants you the freedom to create magnificent works of art. Every horizon has another potential shot, and you'll hitchhike your way around the galaxy if you have to if it means catching your elusive unicorn.

Xenoseeker Character Concepts

"The thought of meeting alien life-forms excites you. The more different their appearances and customs are from yours, the better! You either believe they have much to teach you or you want to prove you are better than them. Of course, the only way to accomplish your goal is to leave the Pact Worlds and travel to the Vast, where a virtually endless number of aliens await."

Captivated Anthropologist - This concept makes perfect sense. As an anthropologist, you live and love to study the differences between humanoid species. You can even take it a step further to be fascinated with specific aspects of each of the races. What are the secrets behind the Lashunta's psychic abilities? How tough are the scales of the Vesk? So many questions and not enough time to find all the answers. You might become acutely interested in your crewmates, asking them all sorts of intrusive questions in order to develop an understanding for their specific gifts and talents. Beings with surgical enhancements might be particularly interesting to you as humanoids continue their never-ending quest for power.

Inquisitive Marketing Guru - If you want to sell something, you HAVE to know your market. Double blind surveys, focus groups, experimental expos...you will stop at nothing to understand the people buying the products you're pitching. Whether you're a part of an elaborate Ponzi scheme or a well-known enterprise, you are hungry to understand the psychology of buying patterns and habitual spending. If you can unlock those secrets, you will be the most valuable asset to whichever company decides to employ you. And, by developing an understanding for the beings around you, you'll undoubtedly be an asset in any situation involving sweet-talking with honeyed words. Heck - maybe if you can find some delicious edible aliens, you will be the next great snack mogul in the Pact Worlds! Second only to Zeni himzelf.

Experimental Doctor - You embrace the uniqueness of yourself and encourage others to do the same. Stand out from the crowd, you say. Set yourself apart! Implant yourself with one of the many augmentations that you can provide! Your interest in the countless creeping aliens and obscure creatures skittering around the Vast stimulate your imagination and provide you with the necessary...tools to allow you to develop exciting new attachments for your adoring fans. Or maybe you're more secretive and don't think your work should see the light of day. Will you be a mad scientist or a renowned surgeon? The choice is yours!

Calming Zoologist - People will pay loads of money to see an exhibit they've never experienced before. There are countless numbers of mindless creatures out in the far reaches of space that would be welcomed additions to a zoological attraction. Your history in taming wild beasts and soothing the animalistic nature in the creatures you've encountered makes you the perfect person for the job. There is a fantastic space zoo that'll pay top dollar for new specimens, and you're itching to get paid. This isn't to say that you are inconsiderate of the creatures' feelings, however. The zoo that you're working for is more akin to a resort, and they take great care of the residents that live there.

Talkative Space Taxi Driver - While taking fares, you've come across just about every type of intelligent being known in the sector. Long nights that turned into early mornings were a staple of yours, and you've delivered passengers to slums, clubs, and luxury estates, learning about them all the while. You love a good conversation; it helps pass the time and gives you an amazing repertoire of stories to share with your crewmates. Everybody comes from a different background, and you have learned to appreciate the intricacies and uniqueness that everybody brings to the figurative table. You might have a bit of a lead foot as well...but who doesn't?

Themeless Characters

If you don't fit the bill with any of the other themes, then you are probably Themeless. By choosing to forgo a theme designation, your statistical bonuses will suffer compared to a character who has a theme, so if you're more concerned with numbers and maximizing your character, then this might not be for you. Choosing this option, however, will allow you to portray your character as a vast canvas, awaiting your masterful strokes.

Hopefully I've portrayed the wide variety of concepts that the Starfinder themes can cover. With a dash of creativity, you can morph at least one of the themes to fit the base core of your character. Try to think about each of the themes in new ways; don't get caught up in the specific 'title' of the theme. Read the blurbs about each one and search for synonyms that line up with the character that you're envisioning in your mind.

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At the end of the day, play a character that you WANT to play. You should be excited every time that you portray your character, and play the game in whatever way is going to be the most fun for you.

I hope you've enjoyed this series on the Themes of Starfinder! See you in the stars!

[dirtytransmasc]

still proud of this because it reads like the absolute disaster I imagine goes through Neteyam's head at all time. like. the way I wrote him perfectly encapsulates drowning in anxiety. rambling because your head is going a million miles an hour. you feel the weight of your life crushing you. exactly Neteyam's position. and pair that with grief and regret and pain? the sense of isolation he would feel?

at first I second guessed my writing and now, months later, I am so glad I posted this as is.

sometimes I go a little crazy and imagine the complex grief Neteyam would have gone through had Spider died in place of him.

the grief that comes with losing your best friend and big brother—

because that's what he was. long ago, when you were little kids, and he still was now, even though you pushed him away, the bond never died, you just abandoned it, and it would be hard, but if you walked up to him he would have taken you back in a heartbeat, arms wide and open and warm, burying his own hurt to keep you close. and you know that. you know he would have, but you never did. you never went back, because it would sting, it would press on old wounds, and it would have upset your parents and your clan and... and you weren't brave enough for that.

—but you couldn't call him that.

he was different than you. a human. a demon. an outcast. quietly removed from you and your home and the forest and your family and your siblings and your clan and even the other humans.

because he was different.

he was unloved by your people. and now a foreign stranger in your new home. they hold no love or memory or any sympathy for him that went past basic compassion and sadness for a child, if even that. he was nothing to them. they did not know he was good. that he was kind. that he was strong. that he would have done anything for his siblings, even you, with all your faults. they did not know.

and you're the perfect eldest child in their eyes, not a boy who would have curled up in the protection of that human boy's arms in an instant if you weren't afraid of being judged. they don't know the conflict that lives in your heart and mind. they don't understand you the way he did, even in his silent watch over you, for all those years you wouldn't call him brother, but he still loved you like one. they don't understand anything about you and what you keep under your facade of a young warrior, eldest son of the Sully's, mature and wise for your age. they don't know that you needed him, you just didn't know how to get him back.

and now no one around you— not even your siblings who will long hold a degree of animosity towards you, no matter how small or subconscious, for all the years they watched you ditch them in favor of duties and push Spider away instead of being their brother, making them a quartet and not a quintet, forcing that awkward tension on them that they'll always have to remember —understands your loss.

not your parents or your new clan, not even your old one will. not your friends or your siblings. not even you.

none of them will understand that he mattered to you. that under the illusion of not needing him or wanting him or considering him family like your siblings did. of seeing him as your mother did, a demon who belonged with his own kind. or passively letting him float in and out of your life because you had bigger, better, more important duties to fulfill, and settling on in or out was too hard. or that when you saw him play and goof off and mess around with your siblings, you wanted to join. or that this entire time in this new home, with things ever so slightly getting better with Lo'ak, you wished he was there too, so maybe things would finally be good.

the friend, the brother, the protector, the shield, the warm smile and golden hair and barking laugh and ever beckoning hand, begging you to join him on an adventure you once knew, is dead. he is dead and gone, and with him died every chance you might have had to fix it. and you will live with your guilt for life, and the fear that comes when you don't have your big brother to look out for you anymore.

and no one understands his grief. he is alone in it. he will feel like a stranger, overstepping a boundary he placed. and he is scared because his big brother is gone. everything he has to face, he has to face scared and alone.

he will be shut out of his siblings grief, just out of how their relationship with one another and Spider was, because their bond is too strained, and he missed out on so much time with them and with Spider and them as a whole. he doesn't fit with their grief.

his parents will want to support him and love him, but Spider mattered very little to them. they were the reason Neteyam pulled away to begin with. Spider wasn't his brother in their minds. they could never support him the way he needed.

the Metkayina, no matter their love or care or sympathy for Neteyam, can't help either.

he is alone. living with his grief. with his regrets. with his pain. it's overwhelming and all consuming. and he will continue to try and act like everything is fine, because he doesn't know what else to do.

they make me fucking insane